omg guys in the uk united i was just reading an attitude and they were talkin about section 28 and im lyk hmmm dunno wat that is so i looked it up. Do you know that properly schools werent allowed to promote gayness and in the eyes of the government gay families are "pretend families" i was lyk OMG i reli couldnt believe wat i was reading and this was till lyk a fewe years ago so lyk wen i started secondary school it was just being put into place to allow them to reli support me and lyk i remember talkin to sum1 that used to go to ma skool that im friends with thats older and he was sayin about 2 guys who were EXPELLED for kissing?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! seriously guys let me know wat u lot think!"!!!!!!!!!!

luv yas

xxxxx

The treatment of homosexuals in schools has thus far been an appauling state of affairs: for the last century or so, it has simply been a matter of the government acting like or giving into bigots and homophobes. However the recent release of anti-homophobic bullying guidelines does signify a continued shift in attitude towards homosexuals in schools. The liberation movement, therefore, needs only to continue to apply pressure to the wound. The Department of Children, Families and Schools has shown a definate concern for homosexual children in schools since its foundation and hopefully it will continue to legislate change in our schools to the point that homophobic bullying will become as serious an offence as racist bullying. What's more, even if Labour goes, the Tory party has a number of high ranking homosexual MPs who I'm sure would continue to press for change in our schools. We're on a fairly defined path to change, right now.

Trouble is, transgendered students still don't have any sort of protection from the government save under the Every Child Matters outcomes, which are vague to say the least. There is no governmnet advice on transphobic incidents and there are only slight indications of any kind of move toward dealing with transphobia in society as a whole. Hopefully over the next few decades we'll see the Trangendered move into a more prominant position off the back of LGB legistlation, but the fight for basic protection for all pupils in British school is still not over.

the really sad thing is that the public education system is still treading on eggshells so to speak, because they're afraid that what they say will cause a riot in the classroom. So as opposed to doing the right thing & actually attempting to discourage homophobia in their classes they go along with the majority opinion, even if it is a blatently homophobic opinion, & completely ignore any possibilities of a gay or lesbian child being in their class. i'd have to say that it'll propably be a long while until GLBT youth (apologies if i got it wrong) are going to be taken seriously by the education authorities.

yeah i know although with me in their class its kinda hard for them to ignore it lol i mean wen i just started goin out with my 1st boyfriend i was goin around showin everyone pictures of him and its lyk every class i went into i was quite literally shouting "OK who HASNT seen a picture of my boyfriend" lol and some of the teachers did ask to see lol anyway off the point

it is really bad that thought and there so isnt enough about aids and HIV bcause i had a scare a wee bit back and it turns out you couldnt even get aids from wat i did but i didnt know that because no1 had told me they just tell you the "Sharing needles sind" pffft

anyway

gays of britain unite (lol always wanted to say that lol)

feed back people feedback

i think its ridiculous, but ignorance happens

--Big sigh--

After just having written a load about this in another thread which I believe was entitled 'In your school...', I've got section 28 spewing out of me in all directions.

So to cut it all down, the bad news is that section 28 is... well, bad. But the good news is that it was repealed in Scotland in 2001 and in the rest of the UK by 2003.

Unfortunately...

The problem that we are still facing today is the alarming rate of homophobic incidents that go unchecked by schools every day. It's not that they don't want to deal with it, it's that they've never had to deal with it in the past, and now that they have the power to do something about it, they don't know how to approach it.

Luckily, however, Stonewall has been running a campaign throughout schools in the UK for some time now called Education For All. This is an initiative designed to give teachers in schools the proper training that they need to deal with homophobia in schools and give pupils a more informed view on homosexuality to eliminate the stigma assosciated with it.

The only problem that there is with this at the moment is that schools don't seem too keen on the whole in taking that first step.